DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN FAIRY TAIL OR ANY OF THESE CHARACTERS
Also I apologize beforehand for any grammatical or spelling mistakes.
BANG! BANG!
Lucy ran as fast as she could, her legs begging her for rests and sweats trailing all over her body but she forced herself to keep running pass her limits. There were several of heavier footsteps following her trails, but she focused herself with sights in front and the sound of guns while keeping some distance from the enemies.
Cursing herself for choosing high heels today, the hardest pair for running ever, she kicked it out before grabbing it on her left hand, then keep running barefoot as she rotate her right earring a few times to turn her communication device on.
"This is agent Heartfilia reporting, how much longer does it takes until we finish guaranteeing the securement? Over."
She waited few seconds for a reply, but nothing.
"Hello?"
Silence, nobody is answering. Not even some shrieking sounds that shows the connection is unstable. That must means they are in a pinch, or their hiding location is pretty close with the enemies.
"Hurry, don't lost track of her, she is nearing the dead end!"
Damn it.
She clicked her tongue in annoyance. Great, this must be one of her unluckiest days. First the shoes, then the communications, now the path. She looked around the places, finding a stack of bricks that looks like a dead end but had some interstice. She could hide there; it has some small space and the place was high enough to cover her whole body, all she had to do was jump. So she did, and she hid. The space was small, but wide enough for one person like her.
"Damn it, she escaped again!"
"This is a fucking dead end!"
"Search around the corners!"
Between pants and washing beads of sweats off her skin, she decided to roll her right earring again, hoping there will be some leads now.
"This is agent Heartfilia reporting, how much longer does it take until we are able to guarantee the securement? Over."
There are screeching sounds this time, and then several sounds of groans and beating following.
"Agent McGarden speaking, we are in the middle of a fight right now. Agent Scarlet is taking care of it along with Agent Lockser. You may follow the plans when I finish counting from five."
Lucy sighed in relief. Finally, she didn't have to run anymore. She didn't know what caused so long, but that just clarifies why the job offered a price so high on the plate. She took a deep breath before exhaling it and decided to peek on what was going around the places.
Five.
She peeked from the tiny hole the rarefied bricks of wall are giving her, her eyes focused on the enemies. There are 7 men looking around the corner, the leader wearing the only different vest of protection. Their postures didn't really put much alert for their torso; that means all of the vests are bulletproof. Noted.
Four.
She eyed the leader that seemed to take attention on her hiding place. His eyes narrowed several times to her side and she took advantage on it by looking towards his attire. His stance's weakness, the places where she can shoot him so he can't move but won't severe his life at the least.
Three.
Then she took attentions on the other six. Their current position and placement, from the nearest point of her to the farthest, and their blind spots.
Two.
At that point, she saw the leader whispering something towards the nearest location of man within her hiding. Their eyes were pointing towards the bricks and suspiciously eyeing it, but she calmed her heartbeat. She prepared the guns on her both hands and clasped her knees together, stance ready to attack while still watching the movement of two enemies advancing closer to her. They were approaching closer, and closer, until her sight from the hole was covered by the vest of one man.
One.
As on cue, she jumped through the wall, landing towards the head of the enemy, blocking his side before shooting the leader's shoulder with her right gun. Then she snapped the man's head she landed onto- not enough to kill, but enough to dislocate some bones or make someone sore, seeing the other five enemies are ready to strike her with their guns.
Without further attention, she landed towards the nearest enemy while dodging their shots, kicking his left leg to make his balance fell and punched his stomach to make him faint before using his vest to her defence. She glanced at the other three enemies, ready to attack and fires their guns as she shot three bullets towards them in a specific direction.
Bullseye.
Bless the distance. It wasn't that far enough for her to aim at the bulletproof helmets of the three enemies. After it throws their attentions off with the force, she shot another three bullets to their shoulders.
"Agent Heartfilia talking, the track is clear now. Over." She said as she ran and uses her phone to see the other of her working partners using GPS.
"Agent Scarlet speaking, good job Agent Heartfilia. Meet us at the first block. I have mailed you our car's plate. Make sure nobody is following and please be careful, over."
"This is a disaster." Lucy groaned as she slumped her head on a table, earning a chuckle from her bookworm best friend.
"Oh, c'mon Lu-chan! Nobody is hurt; I think that's kind of good results."
Erza nodded in agreement, "I believe nothing has been gained, but none loss either." She chimed in, "Juvia seemed pretty happy with the outcome too; at least we get paid for taking care of the guards. The client this time was very generous."
"Yeah, but we went through all that running for the suitcase and it turns out somebody else has took the inside." She grumbled, "The payment hardly covers anything, and now the landlady will kill me for being late paying the rent again." She shuddered at the thought before slumping herself on the cafeteria's table again.
Few seconds of more complaining, she heard the radio calls.
"For Lucy Heartfilia, Master Makarov is awaiting for you in his office. Repeat, for Lucy Heartfilia, Master is awaiting your arrival in his office immediately. Thank you."
"Now, what?" She grumbled as she lazily stood up from her seat, going towards the office because apparently, her presence is needed.
As Lucy walked towards the door of Makarov's office, she hardly pays attention to her surroundings and bumped into someone. She cursed her luck that day before smiling apologetically, "Oh, I'm so sorry for bumping at-" She raised her head as she was about to face the person, "… You." Her smile faded as she saw the pink signature coloured hair man she just bumped into.
"You should be." The man retorted, his eyes looking at the sight of her apologizing with a mocking smirk and had turned the table of her courtesy.
"What a pleasant surprise." She cooed, playing along with his well-mannered act. "What are you doing in front of Master's office? If I didn't hear the radio wrong, Lucy Heartfilia was the name of the person he wants to meet."
Natsu shrugged, "Well, Lucy Heartfilia." He sneered, "Natsu Dragneel was also called soon after that. You didn't hear it? You should get your ears checked." He faked gasp and gave Lucy an innocent concerned look; causing blood boils for the blonde.
"Cocky bastard." She mumbled under her breath before knocking the office door, knowing her company wouldn't even bother to do so if he had the choice not to. She would rather swallow her pride and be the one knocking rather than staying outside the office with the man for the whole day, bickering on who should knock the damn door first.
"Come in."
Lucy took a sharp breath, before her whole countenance loosened and she smiled radiantly, not showing any hints of discomfort. "This is Lucy Heartfilia; did you call for me, master?"
"What do you want, Gramps?" Natsu said in disinterest, straight to the point as he just scratched his hair. Inwardly, Lucy fought the urge to roll her eyes at his disrespectful antics.
Master Makarov was the owner of Fairy Tail Agency, a hidden cooperation full of agents and spies. Although he was supposed to be in the highest position of all, he was fatherly and took care of them like his own children. Therefore, lots of people prefer calling him with nicknames like gramps and grandpa because of the familiarity.
"You brats, sit down." He instructed, which Lucy questioned but followed anyway. She sat on the chair in front of his desk, now face to face with Makarov.
Natsu, on the other hand, raised his eyebrows in confusion. "What for? Gramps, the food is running out in the cafeteria, I need to be quick so I can grab most stuffs I want to eat."
Lucy, who couldn't take it anymore, finally opened her mouth to speak. "Well, if you could just be as insensitive -as you usually is to other things- about the food matters and sit down, everything will go smoothly without you needing to wait any longer." She scorned, narrowing her eyes towards the man.
The pink haired seemed to take the bait, but not leaving the glower towards the blonde which she just shrugged off.
"Excellent, you two are getting along just fine!" Makarov grinned in satisfaction, both hands folded on the desk as he eyed the pair in front of him.
"We so are." Natsu agreed, the venom in his tones were so palpable that Lucy didn't need to face him and see his arrogant expression to know.
Makarov nodded his head, "This is good. Then you two wouldn't mind working together for your next job as partners, right?"
"WHAT?!"
Lucy decided that she had one thing in common with Natsu.
Despite he was haughty, obnoxious, and discourteous, which are the three traits Lucy always found the most infuriating and irritable traits any mankind can have, these aren't the only reason she hated Natsu Dragneel. They never had anything in common, and their points of views in things are as contrast as day and night.
But she had found one thing she can agree together with the man.
And that concludes hating each other.
"You are crazy if you think I'm accepting the job, gramps." Natsu snarled. "I'm out of here; this is just a waste of time."
Lucy narrowed her eyes, "You're right for once, pink head." The so-called pink head swiftly turned his head, glaring at the blonde but said nothing. "I'm not even interested with the reward amount anymore; I'm also out of here." She said as she was about to stand up, but then a voice halted her actions.
"Unfortunately, you two have no option to reject this job." Makarov said, "The client specifically asked for the two of you since you two seemed to make some remarkable impressions on your recent jobs. Rumours spread as fast as the whirl, you know."
Natsu snorted at the poor adage. Clearly, the old man was making it up himself.
"The client is one with long-terms relationship with our agency. If we reject this offer, we'd be giving up one of the biggest sponsors we have."
"Like I care about that shit." Natsu growled, "That client can shove his money back to his fancy skinny pants for all I care, I'm not accepting this offer."
Makarov narrowed his eyes, "Tough luck, Natsu. The contract you signed said that you don't have any rights to reject jobs because of personal issues."
As much as Lucy hated it, she knew there was no way she could convince Makarov to reject the job. She had signed a contract saying that personal issues with job partner won't affect any rejection to a job. She sighed dreadfully; the only way to get away is finishing the job as soon as she can.
"Your mission this time is to capture a certain leader of a dark guild, Eisenwald. His name is Erigor and he's threatening our client's position, it seems."
"Too bad I have to punch the man. Threatening the client sounds like a pretty good thing to do in my opinion."
Makarov rolled his eyes, "Not a polite assertion for someone who's paying you, Natsu."
Natsu faked a gasp. "Oh really? My bad, I don't really care."
He gave a friendly grin, ignoring his bitter proclamation. "You two have three hours to pack your luggage. This means you have to be on train by ten PM. The job takes place in Crocus."
As she walked outside the room and close the door behind her, she saw that the pink haired man was waiting for her. She raised an eyebrow as he began to speak. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm not especially excited for this job either."
"Well unfortunately, it doesn't make anything feel better." She grumbled and the pink haired scoffed at her remarks.
"Don't worry, fatty. We'll just finish the job quickly, and then boom, we're free to hate each other again."
Lucy gaped at the man, "D-Did you just call me fat?" She asked in disbelief. The pink haired blinked innocently towards the blonde and shrugged his shoulder, angering her even more. "For your information, I can merge my weight with your stupid blue cat and you still weigh up more than both of us combined!"
"That's because I'm tall, genius." He countered, "And you weight lesser than me but my body shape clearly looks more attractive than you do."
Lucy predicted nothing comes good by talking with the man, but she just never expected it would be this aggravating. Okay, that was ridiculous. She kind of expected that. She raised her arms, "You know what? I give up. There will be no ending to this. Let's just call it a truce until the job's finished because I don't want the job ended up longer than it supposed to be."
"At least we agree on something." Lucy bit a growl and decided to just let it go.
"Wow… Out of all people, the client just had to request you with Natsu specifically?" Erza asked in disbelief.
"The client must be blind to partner me up with somebody that possibly is worse than horse shit." Lucy said, rolling her eyes with hands on her hips.
Levy patted her shoulder, "Awe, Lu-chan, don't be like that. Although you hate him so much, Natsu is still one of the best. He didn't gain the title as Salamander by sitting around and do nothing." She comforted, but then Lucy just scorned at the bookworm.
"I know he is, but I can also assure you he's a major jerk alright." Lucy grumbled, knowing that she shouldn't let her guard down when she was in his presence.
"I don't know why, Lu-chan. Natsu is usually friendly and helpful to others. We've known each other since elementary and I never seen him hold that much of grudge to anyone before," she contemplated her statements before adding, "Except to Gray that is. It's like nature's law for them both to resent each other."
"Well, guess he just like to ticks me off so much then." Lucy said before she checked her clock and gasped. "Oh my God, the supermarket's sale is about to end! I really have to go, tell Juvia that I'm going back first!" Lucy said as she ran off towards the door and waved her hand goodbye.
As Lucy was out of sight, Levy sighed, "Really, I don't get what happened to them. They hate each other like it was the last thing to do!"
Erza raised an eyebrow, "You mean Natsu and Lucy?"
"Yeah… We all know Natsu is easygoing and goofy. And despite being overly feminine, Lucy is friendly and pretty easy to talk to. Both of them don't easily get triggered by someone's fault and wrongs. From their traits, I was sure they would get along just fine."
Erza thought about it for a minute, "Well… Maybe their first encounter wasn't a really nice impression?"
The blue haired thought about the possibility, "Maybe." Levy sighed in agreement.
Lucy prayed the supermarket isn't out of stock yet because she doesn't need her day to get any worse. Sales were one of her favourite challenge of the day if you cross out her usual jobs, and pretty much the only hope to lighten her day today. She's been looking forward for this super big sale for a whole week and it might be the best thing that ever happened in her day.
The keyword was it might.
Because once she arrived there, she praised God as she saw the stock of her favourite yoghurts was still there.
Although it is pretty crowded by many housewives, she can squeeze herself in somehow. And since it was on sale, she could buy twice the amount of her usual spending and it just made her jump out in joy.
But then just when she was about to buy it, her phone rang and she averted her gaze for few moments. When she glanced back towards the counter, the stock was already sold out. Damn it, she was so close! Fuming, she took out her phone and pressed the answer button with as much force as she can without breaking the screen; not even bothering to check the name of the person who called her.
"What?!" She snapped, "This better be something good." She warningly said to the other side of the phone.
"Well, hello to you too."
Lucy raised an eyebrow at the awfully familiar yet unpleasing guest's voice. "How the hell did you get my phone number?" She hissed and she could visually imagine the snickers from her caller without seeing it herself.
"Gramps gave it to me along with the documents for our new job. Oh, and by the way, this is my work phone number so put it inside your contact."
Lucy rolled her eyes, "That's all you want to tell me?" Because she was sure to kick him in the shin if he called for such unimportant matter, while in here she was giving up her precious yoghurts.
"Um… Not exactly, but it's up to your choice. Up for some drinks? I need to discuss some matters about the job, my treat."
"You're being awfully nice." She said warily, saying it as pleasant as possible without gritting her teeth.
"Oh?" He perked up, "I thought you were the one that called a truce?"
Lucy said nothing.
Natsu chuckled, "Trust me, honey. You're not the only one who wants to finish the job quickly and settle back on hating each other. So let's be civil and professional for now since we're partners."
Lucy sighed, "Sounds good." She agreed half-heartedly, "So where's the coffee shop?"
"Who said it was a coffee shop?"
Lucy raised an eyebrow of confusion.
"You know, when you suggested treating me a drink so we can discuss our mission, I was pretty sure it will be somewhere quiet and relaxing. Not in some place where people are busy sucking faces and doing some illegal trade."
"I didn't say anything about coffee either so basically, you're jumping on your own conclusions." Natsu smirked at her choice of words, "And is that how you put bars on your category?"
"It's not even a category anymore. I'm only stating the fact on what I see and it's not even five minutes long I'm sitting on the barstools."
"So are we going to spend our entire time here hearing your complaints or…"
Lucy sighed and waved her hand off, "Shoot."
Natsu smiled, "Glad we're on the same page." He began scattering few files and opened one of them. Lucy peeked towards the paper and saw Natsu's finger pointed at a specific form. The blonde cocked her eyebrow as she took a glance at the particular paper.
"You see this person? He's Dan Straight, ex Legion Spy. Seems on his past days, he was good enough to be acknowledged by the government. He was one of the S Class spy candidates and he is still in his late twenties by that time." Natsu explained, handing the paper to the blonde.
Lucy looked towards the man's biography. "Sounds pretty famous to me." She scanned the paper, "And what's the hotshot from Legion got to do with our job this time?"
"He went missing. And from the information of the secret outlook, seems like the last sighting of him was caught by the camera going outside this bar's main building, in Crocus." Natsu seriously explained. "And when he went inside, he didn't go alone. It seems." He paused, watching her partner's expression as he trailed off his explanation.
Realizing it, Lucy snorted, "Stop being vague and get to the point. We're not starring at some detective shows so cut the drama and just continue."
Natsu shrugged, "I'm having my moment. It's not my fault you're such a party pooper."
"I'm not!"
"So apparently, he went in along with Naked Mummy." He continues, ignoring the blonde's remarks. Lucy glared at the man, "And you know what Naked Mummy is, don't you? It is a dark guild, specifically under command by one of Baram Alliance, Oracion Seis."
"Wow, really? Is that what I've been missing all along?" Lucy sarcastically questioned.
"Maybe." Natsu answered, amused. "And you know which dark guild is also under command by Oracion Seis?"
Lucy knows. It was an obvious answer. "Eisenwald."
"Correct. And apparently, Naked Mummy members hang out at this bar each Wednesday in Crocus by seven. Rumours say they were in Magnolia to do some business. And this bar is the only branch they have in town."
Lucy widened her eyes in realization, "Wait. Do you mean- And what time is it now?" She frantically asked, mentally not prepared.
"Why, it's seven, of course."
.STORY. *Squeals*
So I've been thinking. A lot. I wasn't really sure to make my first story or not but I finally did it. Oh My God I really did it.
Not the best, and obviously Natsu and Lucy will be out of characters in this story because they need to be sarcastic and hate each other and I know that is simply not Nalu... But I just wanted to challenge myself to try and picture Nalu in alternate universe where their personality might be slightly different XD
I'm sorry for any mistakes and please do drop some reviews to let me know what you think : I need advices too if some of you could provide me some.
